Polish
by soaring-smiles
Summary: "Am not," he retorts automatically, but she's grinning, tongue peeking out through her teeth as she finally puts two and two together. A Nine/Rose fluffy piece set between Father's Day and The Empty Child.


**Nine/Rose happy!fluff. Before ****_Empty Child_**** and written to rot teeth. All feedback, is, of course, appreciated. Hope you enjoy! **

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If he's told her once, it's been a million. No painting her nails anywhere near his console. And yet she's perched cheerily on the battered chair, nose screwed up in concentration, applying hot pink to her toes expertly.

Amazing how, in just over six months, she's learned to _completely_ disobey his demands. Even more astounding that he doesn't mind, is inordinately in..._fond_ of the bright, whirling chaos that is Rose Tyler.

"Whoops," she murmurs idly, as drops splatter the grating, turning grey to a metallic fuschia. He closes his eyes, rubbing at his temples.

"_Rose_," he says, pained, and she ignores him, finishes and straightens, humming proudly at herself. Her ratty sweats, dotted with holes here and there, seem completely at odds with her toes. He sighs heavily.

Bloody humans. Oblivious, they are. To everything. The TARDIS makes a screeching protest as his fingers try to patch up the stabilizers too roughly. He curses, yanking back his hand.

"You're gonna have to clean it off," he comments, shoving the sonic in his mouth as wires spark alarmingly. She shrugs, hands him a spanner without asking and reclines, studying her feet intensely.

He swallows back his affection for her, and nearly drops his screwdriver at her next question.

"Doctor, d'you think I'm pretty?" she asks, staring now at her hands, frowning.

Shock, quickly followed by apprehension, rushes through him. If he says no, she'll be hurt. If he says yes, she'll think-she'll _know_...that he...admires her.

In-in the way a _man_...

"Just that," she continues, "we were on that planet with the really big ballroom-"

"Gelitia-"

"Yeah. And I dunno, I just..."she trails off, losing her thoughts, and fluttering her hands about. He abandons the circuits and wires, shooting up to face her and narrowly misses banging his forehead.

He tries _not_ to see her, to see the way her top skims the soft curves, or the way her mouth is perfectly kissable, waiting for him to lean in and...

"Did someone say something?" he asks, crossing his arms unconfortably. She shakes her head, sending hair settling over her top. Her chest rises and falls in a low sigh. He swallows.

"No, s'nothing like that. Just...no one danced with me. _No one_. The entire night." She turns up her mouth, exhaling. "Sat there like a lump, the whole time."

"Ah," he mutters, pulling at his jumper, and coming to stand closer. "Right." Slightly guiltily, he turns his gaze away from her, and then skitters back. She's a bit like a magnet, pulling him back to her so strongly it's like he's useless at functioning properly without her.

Without him knowing it, he's been staring at her for the better part of a minute, and she slumps, curling a blonde strand around her finger. Her pants are loose, and a stripe of bare skin is showing. He could reach out..."Never mind," she grumbles. "Stupid question, really."

"A bit, yeah," he agrees without thinking, and her eyes narrow.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Oh dear. He's forgotten about women. Human, teenage women, still hovering in girlhood. Hormonal, fragile..._Jackie's daughter..._

"Nothing," he says quickly. "You peckish? I could use a plate of chips, don't know about you..."

"Doctor."

"Wasn't supposed t'mean anything!" he protests, and he just _knows_ his ears are going pink. Last of the Time Lords and-

"You're _blushing_."

"Am not," he retorts automatically, but she's grinning, tongue peeking out through her teeth, as she finally puts two and two together.

Rassilon, he loves her smile.

"You think I'm pretty," she teases, pulling at his sleeve gently, but still delighted with herself.

He breathes, and not very evenly at that.

"Yeah," he admits gruffly, eventually, and her grin drops off her face. Clearly not the reaction she was expecting. Without his consent, this has turned from friendly to...to-

He doesn't bloody well _know_, does he?

"What, not just for a human?" she snarks, and he winces.

"Didn't mean that, you know."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Oh."

Silence reigns for a while, and she's biting her lip, teeth digging into her flesh, and he really, really wants to bite it for her, to make her groan.

"More than pretty, really," he says finally, breaking the little knife's edge they've been teetering on, and he wants to fall, doesn't care if they crash.

"_Oh_," she repeats, but this time, there's real surprise, pleasure, and he even thinks, desire. He ducks his head, not wanting to see her face, because he might be thinking all of this on her, she might be disgusted, or horrified at him...

Her small little hand creeps into his, tentatively. She strokes across his knuckles lightly, like he might bolt at the slightest movement.

"Well," she begins, "I think you're very handsome."

He snorts. "Pull the other, s'got bells on it."

"No, _really_," she persists, squeezing his hand. "I mean it. Gorgeous, even."

He feels a rush of...pride? Affection? _Love_? Whatever it is, it melts his control and sends him flying off of whatever he's been balancing on.

He...

Another thumping double-beat, another moment of anticipatory silence.

Almost without thinking, he places a hand along her cheek. "No one danced with you," he says, tracing her cheekbone, "because you had a bracelet on. It's a sign of ownership."

Her breathing hitches, ever so minutely, and he feels her nerves, her growing want. Her brown eyes are wide, tiny smile beginning to curve up.

He loves her lips, too. Candy pink today, and he imagines they'd be just as sweet as they look. He wants to find out.

"_You_ gave me the bracelet," she murmurs, leaning into his palm, turning her face to his touch. "Does that mean you own me?"

"Nah," he replies, slipping to run a thumb over her mouth, and she sighs, eyelids fluttering shut. "But you're still mine."

"Mmm," she hums, and he's about to tilt her head up, to bring his down, but she speaks first. "You didn't dance with me, either. At the ball."

He stills, closer than ever before, and feels the beginnings of something warm spilling out into his chest.

"You looked devastating," he admits, sheepishly. "I might've dragged you back to the TARDIS and had my way with you. Couldn't risk it. Call it a self-preservation instinct."

She smirks wickedly, reaching up to toy with the buttons on his jacket, perching on her knees, eyes level with shoulders. "Wouldn't have minded," she says, and _then_ he kisses her, drowning, sinking, coming home.

She's soft, is what he thinks. Warm and soft and folding into him. Arms twine around his neck, and he draws her up, flicking his tongue against her lips, and when she whimpers as he teases her mouth open, he wants to take her there, right now, bend her over the console, and bugger anything else.

But she pulls back, gasps for air greedily. He runs a lazy hand down her hip, pausing briefly at the curve of her waist, brushing his fingertips against her breasts lightly. She makes a sighing, pleading noise in her throat, reaching for him again, inviting, eager. Her hands slip under his jacket, trail over his back. The leather hits the grating with a thump, and her touch starts a fire deep in his stomach.

He leans down, meets her lips again, and drives deeper, kissing again and again, using his respiratory bypass system to its best effect. She clings to him, not wanting to let go, and just a bit lost. He likes her fingernails digging into his shoulders, likes the way her painted toes curl as he sucks at her bottom lip.

As he draws back, one arm firmly about her waist and a hand cupping her head protectively, he grins broadly at her, at her dazed, mildly stunned look, swollen mouth and all.

"Don't think this is getting you out of cleaning the floor," he warns lightly.

She brushes a hand along the hem of his jumper-recovering from her incoherency awfully quickly- and slips a finger under to find his skin, hovering near the waistband of his jeans. He stifles a moan.

"We'll see about that," she tells him, wonderfully rumpled and claimed, pants sloping ever lower on her hips, and slides her hand under his jeans.

Soon, he can't _quite_ remember what she did wrong in the first place.


End file.
